Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM
against democracy, the Leninist Generation was portrayed along with fascism as "enemies
of democracy" and supporters of dictatorship. 20
Youth Against Dictatorship: The Popular Front Generation
In a dramatic turnaround, Dimitrov insisted that the only way to effectively combat
fascism was for communists to redefine themselves as champions of all forms of democracy
and opponents of dictatorship. Dimitrov identified fascism as an enemy of all forms
of democracy. Fascism had destroyed Weimar democracy and threatened to undermine
all democratic states, including the Soviet Union. Popular Front propaganda downplayed
traditional anti-democratic rhetoric, profoundly transforming communist's political
identity. 21 Dimitrov insisted that fascism had produced a "new era" of class struggle
centred on democracy:
The situation is quite different in the capitalist countries at present. Now the fascist
counter-revolution is attacking bourgeois democracy in an effort to establish the most
barbaric regime of exploitation and suppression of the toiling masses. Now the toiling
masses in a number of capitalist countries are faced with the necessity of making a definite
choice, and of making it today, not between proletarian dictatorship and bourgeois
democracy, but between bourgeois democracy and fascism. 22
Unity of "all democratic elements" created "an insurmountable barrier" that would
"prevent [fascism] from coming to power in countries of bourgeois democracy." 23 Under
this new era, Dimitrov insisted "it is not at all a matter of indifference to us what kind of
political regime exists in any given country." 24
As previously noted, Dimitrov defined fascism "as the open terrorist dictatorship of
the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital."
25 "Incorrect" definitions of fascism characterized it as simply another form of
bourgeois dictatorship:
The accession to power of fascism is not an ordinary succession of one bourgeois government
by another, but a substitution of one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie
-- bourgeois democracy -- by another form -- open terrorist dictatorship. It would
be a serious mistake to ignore this distinction. 26
Workers had a stake in protecting bourgeois democracy against its substitution by a
fascist dictatorship. Dimitrov stated, "The proletariat of all countries has shed much of
its blood to win bourgeois democratic liberties, and will naturally fight with all its
strength to retain them." 27 Togliatti emphasized that communists could not be content
"passively registering events" as fascism destroyed these gains; communists needed to
put "the defence of bourgeois-democratic liberties at the centre" of their program. 28
Comintern leaders reemphasized Dimitrov's positions to the YCI's Sixth Congress.
Otto Kuusinen emphasized the changed character of the struggle against fascism and the
importance of traditional democratic slogans:
In the international movement for a united youth front new slogans have, as you know,
recently come into use – new slogans which basically are rather old slogans: the slogan
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